Meet one half of Britain's most notorious couple
“The illegitimate child of a Glasgow waitress who turned him over to another couple to be raised, Brady displayed classic psychopathic symptoms from early childhood.”- Harold Schechter “The Serial Killer Files”
Ian Duncan Stewart was born in a Glasgow slum on 2 January 1938 to single mother Peggy Stewart. He never knew his father’s identity-some suggest he was a newspaper reporter. Unable to afford a babysitter, and working as a waitress to support them, Peggy was forced to leave Ian alone for long periods of time. She gave up on him when he was four months old. She ‘advertised’ him for adoption in a newsagent’s shop window. Peggy visited him at his foster family fairly regularly until he became a teenager. But all during this time she never told him that she was his mother.
THE OUTSIDERIan was a lonely, secretive, difficult child, despite the best attempts of his adoptive parents. His extreme temper tantrums often ended with him banging his head on the floor. Despite being ‘exceptionally bright, he did poorly in school.’ He was socially awkward and considered a ‘sissy’ at sport.
MAGGOTSAged nine, he had a transcendent experience on a family outing on the moors of Loch Lomond. He left his sleeping family and stood for an hour, silhouetted and solitary on a steep slope looking at the vastness before him. His sense of superiority and the sense that others were merely ‘maggots’ before him started to crystallise around this pseudo-religious event:
“He didn’t need somebody else’s god. He was creating his own.”Dr David Holmes, Criminal Psychologist
His cruelty to animals started soon after. It ranged from ‘stoning dogs, decapitating rabbits, and, on one occasion, burning a cat alive.’ He later told Myra that he was just ten years old when he killed his first cat. He threw it from a tower block.
At just 12, his mother Peggy leaves Ian entirely and goes to live with her new husband in Manchester, an Irish labourer called Patrick Brady.
NAZI & NIETZSCHEAged 13, Ian had his first court appearance. He was charged with housebreaking. As a teenager, he developed a fascination with the writings of Nietzsche and with Nazism.
“Brady’s fascination with Nazism works on a number of different levels. Firstly there’s this sense in which Hitler obviously was the father to the masses, and Brady is without a father. Remember too that Brady is somebody who has consistently liked to shock. It’s a shocking thing to like the Nazi’s when...you’ve lived through the war...to say you support the people that you’ve actually been fighting against is quite a shocking thing to do.”- Professor David Wilson, Criminologist
Ian also continued his stumbling career in petty crime. In 1953, and now on his third charge for housebreaking and burglary, he could have received a custodial sentence. Instead the courts returned him to live with his birth mother and stepfather Patrick Brady in Manchester. Ian was now 16-years-old.
In an attempt to belong, he took his stepfather’s surname. His stepfather got him a job as a porter. But Ian’s sense of alienation continued. He explored the sadistic writings of the Marquis de Sade and adopted the Sadean belief that murder is ‘necessary, never criminal.’ He started drinking but avoided beer. To set himself apart, he drank red wine.
Brady returned to crime. He was not successful. Aged just 17, he was sent to Strangeways Prison. Prison life hardened him. There he learnt bookkeeping skills and how to brew his own alcohol. He would soon become an alcoholic.
MILLWARDS MERCHANDISING AND MYRAFollowing his release in November 1957, Ian became even more of a loner. He was employed at different manual jobs for short periods. In 1959, his prison taught bookkeeping helped him find a job as a stock clerk with a Manchester firm, Millwards Merchandising.
Outside of work, Ian was fascinated by new technology. He bought his own audio recording equipment and transferred Hitler’s speeches onto vinyl records. He also made a dark room for the development of photographs.
In 1961, a new secretary started at work. Her name was Myra Hindley. Four years his junior, Brady barely noticed her at first. Myra flirted with Brady for a year before he showed any interest. He could have been distancing himself for her because it demonstrated control on his part. Or it could have been that the definitely bisexual Brady was in fact homosexual and had little genuine sexual attraction to her. Brady eventually asked her out. Where other couples went to see the first ever James Bond, ‘Dr No’, Brady took Hindley to the film, ‘The Nuremburg Trials'. That was their first date. He encouraged her to read works by Hitler and de Sade. He was educating her to be a female version of himself. But rather than consummate the affair, he cooled to her and avoided her at work. He would then engage with her. Then drop her again. He was grooming her.
DARK MIRRORHindley was completely malleable. Brady was her first lover. Their first sex was brutal and violent. As he took her virginity, he bit her repeatedly.
But still Myra dressed and styled herself to please him. Decades before mobile phones and the internet made the practice commonplace, she posed for pornographic photos for him. Her unquestioning acceptance encouraged Brady to become more extreme. This culminated in him believing that the couple should experience the ‘supreme pleasure’. The supreme pleasure would be found by the rape and murder of others. He read Harold Robins ‘The Carpet Baggers’ to Myra. He portrayed its sickeningly detailed description of the rape of a 15-year-old, of incest and paedophilia as ‘adventures’.
COMPULSIONBrady, previously cruel to animals, now targeted those convicted of animal cruelty. He and Myra would drive to their homes and either beat them up or put a brick through their window. He was showing Myra a world where only their rules mattered.
He next gave her a book called ‘Compulsion’ about the real life abduction and killing of a Chicago school boy by two good looking wealthy young men who thought they had committed the perfect crime. The novel was intended to be an argument against capital punishment. Ian used it to work out what the killers did wrong: they had abducted the boy close to where they lived; they had dumped the body in a drainage ditch where it would eventually be found; when they burnt the victims face they didn’t do it properly so the victim could still be identified.
THE PERFECT MURDERIan outlined a plan where Myra would wear a disguise, abduct a child, take it to the Moors, rape and murder it and bury it there. The plan was for the perfect murder. They started to rehearse abductions. Brady had found his sick soul mate.
None of the couple’s descent into madness was noted by their neighbours.
One neighbour remembered the couple as ‘very quiet, ordinary, normal people’ but that Brady, out of the two was more reticent. Family and friends, however, noticed the cumulative effect that Brady had on her. She became increasingly surly and secretive.
In 1963 Brady tested her blind allegiance by pretending to plan a bank robbery. He was gratified when she took all the steps necessary to execute the plan without question. Hindley would assist him in making his perverted ideas of pain and pleasure a reality.
The Crimes
“Rape is not a crime, it’s a state of mind, murder is a hobby and a supreme pleasure.” -Ian Brady's notebook
PAULINE READE, 16
On the night of 12 July 1963, 16-year-old pretty Pauline Reade became Brady and Hindley’s first victim. Pauline was on her way to a local dance. Hindley persuaded her to get in her car. She said she needed help finding a lost glove and offered to give her some music records if she did. Hindley drove Pauline to Saddleworth Moor. Brady followed on his motorbike.According to Brady, Hindley joined in with the sexual abuse and torture that followed.Brady first raped Pauline. She was beaten and stabbed. He then went behind her and cut her throat so hard it looked to Hindley like she’d been decapitated. And then they buried her.On returning, they carefully washed the car down to remove any forensic traces. The murder weapon and all their clothes were burned.But instead of this cementing the killer’s relationship, Brady cooled to Hindley. He started visiting a gay pub in Manchester, the Rembrandt.When he decided he needed to kill again, he brought Hindley a music record, ’24 hours from Tulsa.’ The purchase of records would become part of their pre-murder ritual.Brady told Hindley he wanted to go for someone younger. Pauline had put up too much resistance.
JOHN KILBRIDE, 12
Four months later, on the Saturday afternoon of 23 November 1963, 12-year-old John Kilbride disappeared from the vicinity of the marketplace in Ashton-Under-Lyne. The eldest of four brothers, his family described him as a pleasant lad, often to be heard singing and whistling. Photos of the boy in his school uniform show him with a hint of a cheeky smile.“I had this terrible feeling that something had happened to him right away because he wasn’t the kind of boy who would leave home for any reason.”-Mother of John KilbrideHis family never saw him again.Brady raped him and then killed him. After killing John, Brady shook his fist at god. His sense of elation quickly evaporated. All his years of intellectual rejection of the idea of an omnipotent being were shown to be a joke as his own instinctual reactions demonstrated he believed in one.Brady returned to their car with one of John’s shoes. As with a lot of other evidence, Brady would later burn it.When John’s grave was finally discovered, it was partly through his remaining shoe that his family would be able to identify their missing John.Smiling, swaggering photos of Hindley and Brady above their victim’s graves would reveal the boy’s final resting place.“...they subsequently take photographs of Hindley on the grave where John Kilbride has been buried. And this is the first real example I can think of where trophies are taken. The photograph becomes a trophy.”Professor David Wilson, CriminologistThe photos were also grave markers for Brady. He would develop the photos back home in his dark room.
KEITH BENNETT, 12
On 16 June 1964, 12-year-old Keith Bennett disappeared whilst on the way to his grandmother’s house. Again, Hindley had lured him into her car and driven him to the Moors.Brady took Keith to a gully next to a stream. He then raped the 12-year-old boy. After, he strangled him. The pair buried his body.Keith’s disappearance wasn’t noted until the next day. A massive police search revealed no clues.Brady was methodical. He has a forensic checklist to go through for each murder. He would brush down coats to remove fibres and afterwards, he would count every button.The authorities thought the disappearances ‘unrelated’.“One of Brady’s loves was Nietzsche, and Nietzsche, of course, is famous for writing about man and superman. Here’s Brady, having committed three murders of three children, in the local community, and has not been caught. He must have thought of himself as being all-powerful. He’s not just a man – he’s superman.”Professor David Wilson
LESLEY ANN DOWNEY, 10
On the afternoon of Boxing Day, 1964, 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey disappeared from a local fairground, and again a huge police effort, bolstered by volunteers, unearthed no clues as to her whereabouts. Inevitably, her stepfather came under suspicion.In fact, Lesley had been snatched from the fair and taken back to Hindley’s house.‘DAD WILL YOU TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF ME’
Lesley was bound and stripped. Naked, she was made to pose for pornographic photos. Earlier, Brady had set up his lights to take the best shots possible. He’d also hidden his tape recorder under the bed. After they’d taken the photos, they then told her that they would kill her. With the tape recorder, they captured her heartrendingly begging for mercy. In desperation, Lesley called Brady ‘Dad’. It had no effect.According to Hindley, Brady then strangled her.And despite the commotion, no one reported anything:“We heard shouting. Then we heard boys and girls screaming. But of course I thought it was just boys and girls larking about.”Next door neighbour of Brady and Hindley
HOUSE OF HORROR
The Brady and Hindley home where the couple killed Lesley was in Hattersley. This Manchester suburban overspill area was the “epitome of respectable working class suburbia.’ There were barely any tower blocks. The new brick builds rented for £3 a week. It was popular with the recent Caribbean immigrant families, some of whom lived on the couple’s street, Wardle Brook Avenue. Their house was as non-descript and innocuous as the next.And the couple mixed with the neighbours just enough not to raise suspicions. Brady liked wine and to play the piano. He seemed aloof to neighbours and he kept himself to himself. But his garden improvements and DIY upgrades to the house suggested he was good for the neighbourhood.They’d interact with the neighbours occasionally when one or the other would walk their black and white dog, the aptly named ‘Puppet’. They went onto the Moors with nearby neighbours Carol Waterhouse and her brother and another child neighbour, Patricia Ann Hodges. Despite repeated trips with them to the Moors, these children weren’t harmed. They remember Myra as ‘sociable and bubbly’ whereas Brady was more withdrawn. They gave them sweets and made them feel the centre of attention.The couple used to go to work together and return in their van. They took it in turns to walk the dog at night.The only visitors neighbours saw was Hindley’s sister and her husband, David Smith. Brady had debated with Hindley whether they should kill David. Instead, they decided to draw him into their world.Brady, already an alcoholic, was now becoming even more arrogant. He boasted of his actions to David. As David had a police record for violence Brady probably felt he was in safe company. David questioned whether Brady could follow through on his claims. Brady offered him a demonstration.
EDWARD EVANS, 17
The couple’s last victim was the smartly dressed 17-year-old Edward Evans. On 6 October 1965 Brady and Hindley drove to Manchester Central Station. Edward had just been to see Manchester United play. Unusually, it was Brady that lured in Edward. This was because Edward was gay. The apprentice engineer agreed to drive back to the couple’s semi-detached home.
But Brady wanted his new acolyte, David, to witness him in action. So he sent Hindley to collect him.Inside the couple’s home, in their front room, Brady repeatedly bludgeoned Evans with an axe.Evans asked for his mum as the blows rained down. Brady is so excited by the kill that he initially doesn’t realise he’s hurt his ankle. The frenzied attack continues and after fourteen blows, Evans skull split open.Brady then strangled him with a piece of electrical flex.He did it all in front of David:“That’s it, it’s the messiest yet.”Brady to Hindley after murdering Evans.Brady told David how the Moors were their other playground and preferred graveyard.Brady joked with David about a time when they’d been digging a grave for one of their victims and a policeman had confronted Hindley about what she was doing.Fearing a similar fate if he revealed his disgust, Smith helped Brady clean up and take the body upstairs.After scrubbing away the blood, the three sat and had tea. David calmly sat with the killers for hours. When he thought it safe, he suggested he’d go home. He casually walked out the door. Only when he knew he couldn’t be seen by Brady and Hindley, did he run all the way home.
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Timeline
The Tragic Timeline
January 1938 - Brady is born in Glasgow
July 1942 - Hindley is born in Manchester
July 1963 - Pauline Reade a 16 year old neighbour of Hindley's becomes the couple's first victim
November 1964 - 12 year old John Kilbride is abducted by the couple from a market in Lancashire subjected to sexual assault and murderd
June 1964 - Keith Bennett is lured into Hindley's van and later strangled to death by Brady
December 1965 - Lesley Ann Downey is abducted from a fun fair before being murderd
October 1965 - Edward Evans aged 17 becomes the couples last victim
October 1965 - Police arrest Brady after the body of Evans is discoverd at his home
May 1966 - Brady is convicted given a life sentence for the murders of John, Lesley Ann and Edward. Hindley is also convicted for their murders and for shielding Brady after John's murder, and also jailed for life.
1987 - The couple finally admit to the murder of Keith and Pauline and help Police in their search for their bodies only Pauline's is discoverd
1999 - Brady goes on hunger strike in prison for the remainder of his life he is fed with a tube
Novemeber 2002 - Hindley dies in prison
May 2017 - Brady dies in prison
The Aftermath
A MONKEY IN A CAGE BEING POKED BY A STICK The bisexual Brady maintained a long distance relationship with Hindley for his first years in jail. But from love letters and requests for marriage, rifts soon started to appear. Brady accepted he would never again be free. Hindley couldn’t. The couple drifted apart. And when Hindley ended their connection, he said that she was a manipulative liar and as evil as him. Betrayed, he plotted his revenge.
“How many instruments of murder do you suppose there are in this room?” Brady’s first question to Dr Alan Keightley
Dr Alan Keightley was requested to meet Brady by Anne West, the mother of Brady’s fourth victim, Lesley Ann Downey. It was hoped that Dr Keightley, an ‘eccentric academic’ and former head of religious studies, would form a relationship with Brady based on their mutual interest in religion.
For the next 25 years, he became Brady’s confidant.
In jail, Brady mixed with Buster Edwards, the Great Train Robber and Ronnie Kray of Kray Twins infamy.
In 1985, Brady was diagnosed as a criminally insane psychopath and was transferred from prison to high security Ashworth psychiatric Hospital, Merseyside. He would be there for nearly the next thirty years. It was there that he confessed to tabloid reporters that he had in fact killed Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett. But it wasn’t remorse that prompted his revelations. It was revenge. He wanted to hurt Hindley for cutting him out of her life and his confessions hurt her bid for freedom.
In 1987, he returned to the Moors with the police.
In 1997 Brady strangled another patient after mocking the patient’s coughing fit. Only the intervention of staff saved the man.
In 1999 he went on hunger strike. He was therefore force fed. A feeding tube protruding from his left nostril became a permanent feature. Some might believe it unnecessary as every morning he eats toast and soup. But he’s embarrassed to admit this so if his nurse observes he’s eating, she’ll knock before entering so he has time to clear his food away.
His daily diet also consists of being dosed with sedatives. He chain smokes Gauloises and has complained often that they are not killing him fast enough.
LAUREL AND HARDY
He wanted to be judged sane and be transferred back to prison where he could starve himself to death. At this time, he believed that he could ‘talk to Laurel and Hardy.’
Brady’s demands to die were refused by the High Court in March 2000, which upheld the hospital’s right to force-feed him. They judged that his desire to die through starvation was simply part of his ‘obsessive need to exercise control.’
In April 2001, the High Court in London again rejected Brady’s appeal ‘for the right to die’.
Brady continued to write and offer his opinions:
“I’m glad I’ve lived to see an enemy prepared to die for something other than their bank balance and pensions... They’re even being trained to die at schools. Admirable commitment."
Brady’s take on the 9/11 suicide bombers
Brady’s confidant, Dr Keightley, smuggled out Brady’s book ‘The Gates of Janus’.
In August that year, Brady was front-page news once again, when it was revealed that he stood to earn £12,000 for his analysis of serial killers. Brady did not talk about his crimes in the book.
In February 2006, Brady sent the mother of victim Keith Bennett a letter. In the letter he complained of his treatment at the high-security hospital saying he was being kept alive by force-feeding for "political purposes". Brady also claimed that he could take police to within 20 yards of where Keith Bennett is buried.
It was revealed in December 2011 that Brady would face a public mental health tribunal hearing on whether he should be returned to prison, having been detained at Ashworth hospital since 1985.
In August 2012, Brady was in the news again as police investigated whether he had given details of the location of Keith Bennett’s grave to his mental health advocate, Jackie Powell. Keith’s mother Winnie, after a lifetime of hoping that Brady would reveal where her boy was, sadly died that month.
RECREATIONAL KILLINGS
In June 2013, the 75-year-old Brady spoke in public for the first time since his 1966 trial. Brady went to tribunal seeking permission to be transferred from a psychiatric hospital back to prison. It was believed to be only the second time in English history that such a hearing had been heard in public.
He received legal aid for his bid. The cost to the taxpayer was initially estimated to be £250,000. In his evidence he referred to his torture and murder of five children as ‘recreational killings’ and an ‘existential experience.’ He also bemoaned his lack of control and that he was nothing more than a ‘monkey in a cage being poked by a stick.’
The medical panel decided that Brady was still a paranoid schizophrenic and rejected his appeal.
On 30 July 2013 The Daily Mirror revealed through a Freedom of Information application that Brady’s transfer attempt had cost the taxpayer twice the expected amount and the bill was now £500,000. The NHS had had to pay £200,000 of that to prove the serial killing paedophile was insane. The Mirror reported that NHS costs alone were ‘equal to the annual salary of nine nurses or maternity care for 70 women.’
Around this time, there were claims that the grave of Keith Bennett may have been 40 miles away from the Saddleworth Moor.
Brady has been collaborating on an autobiographical book to be published on his death. The manuscript is said to be in the safe of his solicitor. In it, it’s claimed he will admit to nine murders, four more than the five known. He has written that he killed two men in Glasgow and a man and a woman in Manchester. It is also believed the book is intended to implicate Hindley in the sexual abuse of the children.
Brady suffered from cataracts and spondylitis meaning he has chronic back pain before passing away at age 79 on Monday 15 2017. Brady had revealed that he had chest and lung issues in December 2016. Although the NHS Spokesman stated that the cause of Brady's death was unknown, they confirmed that he was on oxygen for a while.
It is reported that Brady had died hours after being urged to "do the right thing" and reveal the location of Keith Bennett, however Brady has taken this to the grave with him:
“Keith Bennett’s unfound body is very important to Ian Brady. He has one actual murder which he can consider to be perfect.”
Dr David Holmes, Criminal Psychologist
“If there is a hell, that will be where Ian Brady is going to go.”
Professor David Wilson, Criminologist
The Trial
Even arrest and custody didn’t separate the couple. Given the same solicitor, the couple met together and were able to exchange notes.
In these they would detail sick fantasies. In one, they encouraged the throwing of acid onto the face of a grieving relative of one of their victims’. Brady was so deluded by this point that he looked forward to his moment in the public eye.
“Brady regarded the courtroom as something that he could almost preside over. His over confidence and narcissism actually made him think that everyone would believe what he said.”
-Dr David Holmes, Criminal Psychologist
Hindley and Brady were brought to trial at Chester Assizes on 27 April 1966 where they pleaded "not guilty" to all charges. Their tactic was to blame David Smith for everything.When the 13 minute tape of Lesley Downey’s torture and pointless cries for mercy were played in the court, even hardened policemen broke down in tears.When asked his reaction to the anguished cries tape recorded Brady described them as ‘unusual.’
Asked afterwards what happened when they’d finished taking pornographic photos of Lesley, Brady said ‘we’ got dressed. This one slip fatally implicated Hindley.The trial lasted 15 days.
WICKED BEYOND BELIEF
On 6 May 1966, Brady was found guilty of the murders of Lesley Ann Downey, John Kilbride and Edward Evans.Judge Fenton Atkinson imposed three concurrent life sentences on the 28-year-old Brady and described him as ‘wicked beyond belief’. Brady only escaped the death sentence by a few months as the death penalty had only been abolished four weeks before their arrest.
The killer couple were both jailed for life, with a minimum recommended tariff of 30 years. Brady would not be seen in public again for another 46 years.
His and Hindley’s crimes would become the benchmark by which other acts of evil would be judged.
The Arrest
The Nightmare Begins
"People put this aura around Brady that he doesn't deserve...He's a paedophile. He's a child murderer. He's a coward. Brady's nothing."David SmithThe megalomaniacal Brady had attempted to recruit 17-year-old David Smith. Instead, Smith would report the couple to the police and become the key witness for their prosecution:“I think Brady thought he’d got another convert to his cult.”-Jean Richie, AuthorBrady had believed that because of David’s violent past, he’d found a kindred soul. And when in April 1965 David’s six month old baby died unexpectedly, Brady thought he was vulnerable enough to be converted to his belief system. He ‘groomed’ David in exactly the same way he had Hindley. He gave him the same books and even gave him essays to write to show he’d understood his reading list. And he had David do surveillance on the Electricity Board showroom for a robbery that never happened. Brady took him for shooting practise on the Moors. And both couples often picnicked there. It was only later that David would realise they’d sit and cavort on the graves of the couple’s victims.Brady believed he’d made himself his right hand man and thought a shared murder would seal their relationship.But the bloody bludgeoning to death of a 17-year-old in the couple’s front room did exactly the opposite.Horrified and terrified by the Evans murder, David told his wife, Hindley’s sister, everything. Maureen and he went to a public phone box armed with a carving knife for protection. They rang the police and didn’t leave the box till they came. Maureen accompanied David to the police station on 7 October 1965. David poured out the horror he’d witnessed at Hyde Police station. He wasn’t just doing his public duty. He was scared he would become the couple’s next victim.The police went to Brady’s home and upstairs found Evan’s body and the murder weapon. Brady denied the murder was pre-meditated. He said an argument had broken out between him, Evans and David and initially denied Hindley’s involvement. And at first, because of David’s criminal record, they were reluctant to believe him over Brady:“David Smith, I always feel, was vilified. He was vilified by the people of Manchester, who refused to believe he hadn’t been involved in other killings. People walked out of pubs if he came in, nobody would speak to him, and that kind of thing. David Smith’s a hero, in my eyes, because David Smith did what Myra should have done at the beginning.”Jean Richie, AuthorIt’s only when the police started trawling through Brady’s library of books on murder and sexual perversion that they realise Brady may be responsible for more than one killing.And in his wallet they found sheets of paper and a code with plans on how to dispose of Evan’s body on the Moors. The reason Brady hadn’t was because he’d hurt his ankle during the attack on Evans. Just 24 hours after his arrest the police had enough evidence to charge Brady with murder.But David’s allegations of previous murders seemed impossible to prove. Then the police also found the name ‘John Kilbride’ written in Brady’s handwriting in his notebook. The boy had been missing for two years.Brady had dreamt of committing the perfect murder. But he had left damning circumstantial evidence. Brady denied any involvement in the schoolboy’s disappearance. The police didn’t have enough to charge him but it was enough to convince them that David had been telling the truth.
They started questioning Brady about Keith Bennett and the other suspected victims.The naked body of Lesley Ann Downey was found on 10 October 1965, followed eleven days later by the body of John Kilbride.The police charged both Brady and Hindley.But despite intensive police searches of the Moors there was little evidence of other crimes.So the police re-interview David. David recalled being asked to do surveillance for a robbery. But all the incriminating notes to do with it were packed away in two suitcases. David didn’t know where the suitcases were but did know that Brady liked to frequent railway stations.The police phoned all the left luggage railway stations.They tracked down the suitcases to Manchester’s Central railway station:“I found a photograph of a little girl, and she had a scarf tied round about her mouth, and she was naked. That really was the Pandora’s Box, if you like."Ian Fairley, Former Detective Chief SuperintendentAs the police don’t have any audio equipment, they took the reels to BBC Manchester.First the body of Lesley was discovered and then John Kilbride. But his body was too decomposed to ask the family to identify him. Instead, they took the remaining shoe Brady hadn’t taken from the make-shift grave.Brady and Hindley would be prosecuted for the murders of Edward Evans, Lesley Ann Downey and John KilbrideThere were still two missing: Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett. But escalating costs meant the police couldn’t prosecute for these two killings.